Interior nominee disputes Trump on climate change

By Matthew Daly

Published 4:07 pm, Tuesday, January 17, 2017

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department on Tuesday rejected the president-elect’s claim that climate change is a hoax, saying it is indisputable that environmental changes are affecting the world’s temperature and human activity is a major reason.

Trump has suggested in recent weeks he’s keeping an open mind on the issue and may reconsider a campaign pledge to back away from a 2015 Paris agreement that calls for global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

In contradicting Trump, Zinke cited Glacier National Park in his home state as a prime example of the effects of climate change, noting that glaciers there have receded in his lifetime and even from one visit to the next.

Still, he told Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent-Vt., that there is debate about how much humans have influenced the climate.

Likely to win Senate confirmation, Zinke, 55, sketched out a variety of purposes for the nation’s vast federal lands, from hiking, hunting, fishing and camping to harvesting timber and mining for coal and other energy sources.

The Interior Department and other U.S. agencies control almost a third of land in the West and even more of the underground “mineral estate” that holds vast amounts of coal, oil and natural gas.

Zinke also pledged to tackle an estimated $12 billion backlog in maintenance and repair at national parks, saying parks and other public lands should be a key part of Trump’s infrastructure improvement plan.